


Spar

by JoAsakura



Category: X-Force (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shatterstar is dealing with Rictor's leaving. Gambit, with the uncomfortable tangle of his own life. What happens in the Danger Room, stays in the Danger Room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Two Hours Ago:

It wasn't the first time Remy had come down to the Danger Room lately to find it occupied by the swordsman. He'd gotten accustomed to sitting up in the control room, watching the young man exhaust himself against waves of alien creatures, and, Remy had to admit, it wasn't a bad sight.

Sometimes, watching was enough to take Gambit's mind off the increasingly aggravating tangle that remained of his love life. Shatterstar was easy on the eyes- graceful and powerful in a way that most of the other residents of the mansion weren't - and Remy had taken to locking the control room door when he spied observed his solo training runs.

Even when things had been right between Rogue and himself, it wasn't as if they'd had a sex life to go with their romance. And Remy was a fairly physical creature. And sometimes watching the redhead work out his own obvious frustrations on a room full of holographic monsters was enough to help Remy deal with his own.

Sometimes.

"'ey, homme. You almost done down dere? Other people need kill stuff today too, mon ami." Today was not one of those times, and Gambit winced a little at how irritated he sounded.

Shatterstar "killed" the beast in front of him and paused the simulation. "Ah, I've gone over my allotted time? My apologies, Gambit." He tucked a stray length of sweaty sunset hair behind his ear with a gesture that Gambit found simultaneously maddening and arousing. "I lose track in here."

It was then that Gambit had a Bad Idea. "No worries, kid. Lissen, 'ow 'bout you spar wit' Remy for a bit? I'm t'inkin'I could use some company if you're up t'it?" It was easy to substitute fighting for the other "f-word", and he was certain the X-Force kid could give him a run for his money. Maybe if he wore himself out enough, he wouldn't be plagued with knot of conflicting emotions he was currently trapped in.


	2. Chapter 2

One half-hour ago:

It had started off as a relatively genteel sparring match.

Then one of them had inadvertently called up some elaborate urban setting and in less than fifteen minutes the whole shebang devolved into a ridiculously trash-talking, decidedly violent game of tag.

Gambit wasn't sure if he was having the best time he'd had in ages or if he were slightly terrified by the relentless nature of his opponent, then decided it was somewhere between the two.

Remy perched on a high ledge, licking the sweat that trickled across his lip. The kid was nearly as agile and fast as he was, with the added bonus of being much stronger than he looked. The ribcage-rattling blow from the flat of Shatterstar's sword that Gambit's body armour had taken before attested to that. But age and treachery usually won out over youth and enthusiasm, and Remy had tagged him solidly with a half-charged card a few minutes before.

After the relatively minor kaboom that followed, the scenario was eerily quiet. There were the ambient city noises to be had, but nothing that might reveal one very irritated swordsman.

Remy pondered the pros and cons of giving up his position. It was quite possible that he'd hurt Shatterstar, and that had definitely NOT been his intention. But then, the kid might be playing possum. After all, he WAS one of Cable's brats, and Remy could appreciate that.

There the faintest scrape of steel and a flash of red in his peripheral vision and Gambit twisted in time to dodge the blade that cut dangerously close to his head. "Good one, kid. Maybe in 100 years you good enough to sneak up all de way on me." Remy huffed, staff catching the sword and wrenching it free from the warrior's grasp.

The card had wrecked part of Shatterstar's uniform and knocked more of the bright hair free from its elastic. More than that, he looked absolutely wired as he twirled the remaining sword. "You're an excellent opponent, Gambit." He grinned madly. "I apologise now if you find yourself in Doctor McCoy's tender mercies later." He was absolutely gorgeous. Like some mad, wrathful angel and Remy decided that fighting was most definitely NOT replacing the urge for the "other f-word".

Gambit snorted, dropping into a stance on the narrow ledge. "Some mercy more tender than others, boy." He feinted and grinned when the swordsman took the bait, using Shatterstar's momentum to fling them both into the street, seemingly stories below them.

He landed on top of the swordsman, in the simulacrum of cardboard-filled alleyway, laughing and panting. Remy's staff was pressed hard against the redhead's windpipe and he was acutely aware of the blade near his own.

He was even more aware of his "other staff"- which, with just a little bit of adjustment, was pressing in a just-satisfying-enough-to-be-unsatisfying-way against an answering need. That surprised him, just a little bit. "We call dis one a draw, den, homme?" Gambit asked, still breathing hard. "Unless you got some more in you?"

The boy's eyes were a very bright silver-blue, sharp against the flush across his cheeks and he nodded slowly. "This has been very.. educational... so far." He said carefully. He seemed to be studying Gambit's face and he gradually dropped the sword. "I am.. I'm not sure I would like to stop just yet, though."


	3. Chapter 3

Fifteen minutes ago:

Something, Remy realised, was just not right.

The gloriously arrogant confidence and poise the redhead beneath him displayed during their fight was completely gone. There was an awkward ferocity in his kiss, in the fumbling of his big hands down Gambit's back.

It was almost as if.. as if...

Remy put his hands around Shatterstar's face and gently, firmly pushed him back down into the virtual cardboard. "Shh, shh.. wait a moment, cher." He said, gently stroking back the tumbled mess of scarlet hair. "Dis.. you never do dis before, no?"

The young man suddenly turned a shade of red remarkably like his hair. "Twice... Once, really." His hands fell away and he looked around the alley simulation. "I am... inexperienced in this sort of... behaviour."

"Aw, Cher', is ok." Remy patted his cheek and sat back. (Great. Somet'ing else I get to yank one off about.) But what he said was: "We don' gotta do dis. Ain't no shame in stoppin'." He put a firm foot on his disappointment. Remy LeBeau might have been a cad in many a way, but he didn't ravish innocent maidens.

Even when said innocent maidens were sword-wielding maniac alien mutant guys.

Shatterstar didn't try to get up, he just looked around the alley, jaw twitching slightly. "I... I am not sure I want to stop, Gambit." He said finally, an odd quaver in his voice.

"You sure?" Gambit leaned down again and tugged on a copper strand. "Jes' was a surprise t'me. Someone dat looks as good as you do, you'd t'ink you'd have alot of... practice?" He tried to add delicately.

Shatterstar squirmed underneath him in a manner that Remy found he rather liked. "There's only been... one. That ever.. That I ever.." He coughed, covering his face with his arm. "Fekt. I fear he left because of me."

"Oh, ho." Remy scratched through his stubble. Things made more sense now. "You an' dat boy, Rictor- de one who left. You two were a couple, yah?"

Shatterstar dropped his arm, focusing on Gambit with those bright eyes. "He is my best friend. My feelings for him were very different than what they are for the others." He sighed. "And now he is gone, because I think maybe I should not have kissed him and then we..." Unaccustomed words tumbled over each other and Gambit shook his head, pressing long fingers to the young man's unhappy lips.

(We always love de ones who run away from us.) He thought. (Sides. Dis place sucks for romance.)

"If you love someone, you gotta let'em go. If dey don' come back, dey never yours t'start wit." Remy intoned. Shatterstar scowled at him.

"Do you believe that?" He asked, moving Remy's hand with surprising gentleness.

"Sometime? It's all Remy got." Gambit shrugged eloquently.


	4. Chapter 4

Currently:

As soon as the virtual rat scurried past them in the alley simulation, Remy knew they needed a change of venue.

He was still straddling the young warrior when he glanced up. "Danger Room, change scenario. Gambit Alpha 12-5, please, t'anks."

The room shifted and the anonymous cityscape gave way to oak trees hung heavy with spanish moss, light-bruised sky overhead as lively music filtered from down the street. Around them was quiet, though. Crumbling white headstones and crypts luminous in the gloom.

Shatterstar propped himself up on his elbows, Gambit still resting on his lap. "...This is a... cemetery?" He gave the thief the most perplexed look Remy had ever seen.

"Always ended up here on dates." Remy sighed with nostalgia. "Out of de way. Quiet. It's got ambiance, boy." He poked Shatterstar in the chest.

"Gambit.." Shatterstar began, cut off again by those fingers pressing against his lips.

"People I sit dis close to? Dey can call me Remy." He grinned, then let his hand wander down the shredded purple-black fabric of the warrior's uniform. "You love him, dat boy, don'chu?" There was a fine dusting of copper-gold hair on the younger man's chest, pleasantly rough beneath a thief's sensitive fingertips.

That got a faint shiver in response and Remy let his hands slowly track upwards to catch in the brilliant, heavy mass of Shatterstar's hair. It was almost abnormally soft and it made Gambit fantasize about other long hair on other people that he would love to be doing this to. When he pulled the elastic out, it literally tumbled over the young man's shoulders. (Damn. If only...)

"I think so. I... yes." Shatterstar flopped back to the mossy ground and raked his hands back through his loosened hair. "I do. But even though, I feel.. there is this... need." He sighed. "And it is just not the same alone and I don't know what..."

Remy tried very hard not to laugh. "Ain't no shame in findin' comfort wit' another, boy. Lickin' each other's wounds an' all dat." He murmured, leaning down over the redhead. "Don' mean you love dem any less. 'Sides, Remy teach you t'kiss.. dat way, when he come to his senses and come back,maybe he not be so eager t'leave again." Remy winked at the young man and got a terribly serious expression in return.

"I... think I would like that." He said with that same expression.

Remy shook his head and ghosted his lips over the younger man's. In a way, it was like kissing himself- faint scratch of stubble and soft mouth. An interesting taste there, the scent of his skin - soap and sweat and a faintly alien musk. Kid was a fast learner, too, matching Gambit's leisurely pace now, even if the rest of his body was almost trembling with the effort of keeping still.(Potentially addictive, dis. I ever see Rictor again, gonna slap him upside de head for walkin' out on dis boy.)


	5. Chapter 5

Currently:

Remy LeBeau prided himself on being able to read body language intimately well. As a thief, con-artist and ne'er-do-well superhero, it was a key factor in his continued survival.

And what he'd learned in the last few minutes, nosing his way through too much perfect hair and listening to the barely-stifled gasps as Remy nibbled his way down a very fine, pale length of throat was this:

Shatterstar was almost constitutionally incapable of multi-tasking. He gave whatever task he was faced with his complete attention. His hands, rougher than Gambit's with years of swordfighting, were becoming less hesitant with each passing moment. They'd already mapped out sensitive spots unprotected by the body armour. And each pleasant shiver or squirm that Gambit experienced with each one of those curious touches was met by an answering one. The kid was definitely the best student he'd ever had in this particular venue.

But it was clear he had no attention to spare for anything else at the moment. Remy wasn't hampered by such laser-tight focus, and as the younger man chased Remy's lips with his own, he followed several parallel thought-tracks at once.

One was that he had a better understanding of why Rictor may have fled.

Two young men. Both of whom no doubt had the same spectacularly fucked-up backstories as any one else who wore the "X" and coming to terms with the fact that they were looking at something much more complicated than simple friendship.

Shatterstar's slightly-terrifying determination to be extremely good at pleasing his partner would only make a nervous person worse, he reasoned. And then combine that with a house full of some of the most powerful and nosy telepaths on the planet? (Remy mighta fled too, given de circumstances) he thought. (Don' make de heartbreak no better or worse, tho).

Second was that Gambit was currently cursing his costume.

He sensed there was a line that the young man, who was currently murmuring something (that had nothing to do with Gambit and everything to do with Rictor) in some odd pidgin of Spanish and Something-else that had far too many consonants, would not be able to cross. But Remy was more than willing to take this lesson right up to that edge and body armour, no matter how light or flexible, was absolutely not helping move that along.

Third, was that with his eyes shut and his head thrown back, a warm mouth and sharp teeth faintly teasing his throat, it was easy to pretend the soft hair running through his fingers was different. Straighter, paler, smooth like...

A name, tangled with a moan, caught in his throat and when Remy realised it wasn't Rogue's, he sat bolt upright, jerking himself away from the redhead beneath him.

A moment later and he looked down at very confused, bright eyes. Shatterstar's jaw twitched and Gambit could almost hear the boy's thoughts. "No, no. Cher. You di'n't do a t'ing." He soothed, brushing back the tangled red. "Remy jus'worried, you enjoyin' dis as much as me?"

The flush burning across the younger man's face and painfully earnest expression that twitched on his bruised lips as he attempted to seem unflustered gave Remy the moment he needed to put his attention at the situation at hand.

(Maybe I don' multi-task as well I t'ink I do.) He thought ruefully.


	6. Chapter 6

Currently:

Somewhere along the line, Remy noticed, the young man started improvising. Shatterstar may have had a one-track mind in many ways, but he learned fast and he was extremely good at what might be delicately termed "practical application".

And somewhere in there, after Gambit's trenchcoat and key parts of his armour had been adequately cursed and tossed aside, he'd found himself with his back rasping against a *very* good simulation of an oak tree and his front pressed against the warmer but no more yielding body of a teenaged warrior with serious eyes.

(Mon dieu, and dis hair.) Remy thought as he fisted one hand in the young man's hair. (Might as well be a t'ird person in here wit' us.) His other had slid through the raspy trail of copper hair, down into Shatterstar's uniform pants to free him.

Remy's long fingers twined briefly with the boy's rougher, broader ones and the thief found himself whispering nonsense in the other man's ear as they stroked each other. The callouses on Shatterstar's thumb gave him an absolutely delicious shiver every time it rubbed the head of his shaft. "Is good, non?" he rasped, letting his teeth worry at the swordsman's earlobe.

Shatterstar growled in response, which nearly sent Gambit over the edge right then and there. The boy's face was buried against Gambit's throat, his breath hitching the closer he came to.. "Gambit..I.. I cannot.." came the hoarse whimper in the middle of the growl. Other words followed, more of what had to be his native language, gutteral but no less needy.

"shh, it's good, it's ok, mon amour. Let it go..oui.." Remy babbled, fingers tightening in that glorious hair in a way that had to hurt. It was followed by a sharp hiss of breath, the broad body against his stiffening even as the younger man's shaft twitched in Remy's hand.

That's all it took for Remy, the non-existent space between their bodies sticky-slick and hot. It took a moment before Gambit realised he'd bit down on Shatterstar's broad shoulder during all that and he pressed a faint kiss against the bruise before pushing back a bit.

"Oh, dat was... nice." He said weakly. Shatterstar had his face buried against Remy's shoulder, red hair falling all around. His shoulders shook faintly. "'Ey, you ok, mon ami?" Remy raked back his hair, letting the solid projection of the tree support them both.

"Yes. I am.. " Shatterstar made a very human sound, an exhausted chuckle. "That was.. very good."

They both sank to the ground, 'Star blindly reaching for the remains of his uniform top to clean them. "What does 'mon ami' mean?" He asked suddenly.

"Is french. Means 'my friend'." Remy said, taking the offered fabric.

"Hurm." Shatterstar raked his fingers back through his hair, looked around for the elastic, then shrugged, letting it fall back over his shoulders. "Rictor.. Julio said I would be alright without him for a while. That I had friends."

"Yeah, well, dat boy don' got the good sense to come back here t'you, Gambit may just take you f'himself." Remy teased until he saw the boy's expression. "Aw, c'mon. I'm teasin' you, boy."

"I know." A faint smile quirked at the corner of the young man's mouth. "I think when he comes back, I won't let him leave again so easily." He prodded lightly at the bruise on his shoulder, already fading to green. "What about you?"

"What 'bout me?" Gambit stretched against the fake tree. The rest of his clothes might as well have been on the moon for all he cared.

"You and Rogue and Joseph." Shatterstar said simply.

Remy scowled at him then laughed. "Maybe I tell you all about dat de next time we spar."

FIN


End file.
